It’s 2019. If you’re still holding cryptos — repent! Sell them all and buy copies of my book (US, UK) for everyone you know, and everyone you don’t know!

The government of Georgia will hold a special official event for state Senator Michael Williams — author of a 2017 bill for Georgia to accept Bitcoin for taxes — so that he can explain his secret crypto mining technology to goverment employees! That is to say — he’s just reported to jail after his indictment for insurance fraud. He’s charged with falsely claiming $300,000 of Bitcoin miners had been stolen from his office, and lying to investigators.

A stablecoin user is shocked that the Paxos Standard has to obey anti-money-laundering laws. The aggrieved trader in question literally quotes Paxos’ email explaining that the problem is “the inbound Huobi transactions valued at 9,965 each, occurring multiple times within a single day” — that is, the trader’s blatant structuring to move a large amount of money, but keep each transaction under the $10,000 reporting requirement. If you don’t think the Bank Secrecy Act applies to cryptos, you’re in for an educational time.

The case of the Estate of Dave Kleiman v. Craig Wright survives another motion to dismiss (PDF) — with the judge granting that Bitcoin is sufficiently money-like that a claim of conversion is a possible claim to make. I mentioned this last week, but I just spotted one interesting thing in the PDF — the claims of misappropriation had passed the three-year statute of limitations, because Ira Kleiman, executor of his brother’s estate, was apparently contacted by an auditor from the Australian Tax Office concerning Wright in April 2014. Wish I’d known that for Chapter 6 of the book …

MY PRICE PREDICTION FOR 2019: Bitcoin will remain tradeable for actual money, at various prices. Larry Cermak goes through some ridiculous Bitcoin price predictions for 2018 — a pretty good roundup, though somewhat incomplete in not at least mentioning Mr McAfee’s bold and famous price prediction, even if that was for 2020. Keep in mind that the ridiculous price predictions are all attempts to get a headline, to make Bitcoin look good to the general public — because the entire game is to get new actual money coming in, since the incoming supply of actual money dropped precipitously when all the suckers from the bubble went home.

“Fund managers specialising in cryptocurrencies are appealing for patience from investors.” I bet they are. Specifically, Pantera and Galaxy Digital. “The asset class continues to show signs of maturity,” Galaxy alleged in a November letter to investors. Michael Novogratz of Galaxy told his aggrieved investors that instititutional investors!! will get into cryptos big time in the first quarter of 2019: “That’s when prices start moving again,” apparently.

In theory, there should be no connection between what happens with cryptocurrencies and what happens with enterprise blockchain.

In reality, "blockchain" has always just been an attempt to ride crypto's cool factor. So if coins crash, people stop caring about blockchain. https://t.co/mC67ZutkoS

In January 2018 I posted about where ICO “advisors” come from — usually, it’s a paid celebrity endorsement deal, where you let them use your name and photo for a pile of tokens. The ICO was wiix.io, and the WXC token is another decaying altcoin; I’m pleased to say none of the people who were cc’d on that email with me signed up as advisors. But assume other outside “advisors” just sold their names.

10. @davidgerard, @JorgeStolfi and friends at /r/buttcoin provide a much-needed service in shedding light on the crypto space's worst excesses, and good crypto communities should welcome their scrutiny.

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The content of this site is journalism and personal opinion. Nothing contained on this site is, or should be construed as providing or offering, investment, legal, accounting, tax or other advice. Do not act on any opinion expressed here without consulting a qualified professional. I do not hold a position in any crypto asset or cryptocurrency or blockchain company.